


Cracked Actor

by dirtynumbcrackingboy



Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Character Bleed, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Drugs, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:20:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28035315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirtynumbcrackingboy/pseuds/dirtynumbcrackingboy
Summary: John really wanted to go outside to smoke afterwards, feeling sweaty and feverish, but too paranoid that everyone could tell. He knew, he fucking knew it was all in his head, like everything seemed to be these days.
Relationships: John Simm/David Tennant, Tenth Doctor/The Master (Simm)
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

_I was in a car crash_  
_Or was it the war_  
_But I've never been_  
_Quite the same_  
_Little white lies_  
_Like 'I was there'_

  
  


Replicas, 1979. The first Gary Numan album John got, before Sam Tyler had bought _Cars_ in the show, and wasn't it funny how it affected him so much. Everything in this character hit far too close to home, but he'd had to do it, with a sense of dread and familiarity.

Rock and roll would've been easy, compared to that out of place feeling he always had after reading the script. The best ones were the worst, complete with nightmares of wrecking his car, the War and the drums, the drums, the never ending drumbeat inside his character's head, like it was his own heart trying to pound itself out of his chest.

But he chose to be an actor for a reason, living through someone else and their pain, mourning the loss like it wasn't there in him at all. He had used the word filtering, in the bad old days with weekly therapy sessions.

Someone calls you a fag and pushes you around - fine, you can take a punch and so much more - like every introvert can in those terrible years of growing up way too fast, still looking like a fifteen year old boy, and in a way, he was going to be fifteen for good. You miss your dad and say something horrible to your mum, feeling resentful just because you can. You don't sleep enough, because there's always Shakespeare, and that's some serious shit compared to your life.

You know every line by heart.

_John's_ _(14)_ _experiences of himself vary from inadequateness to narcissistic superiority as a coping mechanism._

_T_ _he patient still feels very strongly about his idols and fictional characters he can relate to._

And that's how he became The Master, or the other way around.

He still feels so awkward at times, as if there hasn't been decades between now and then.

He's always listening when David's talking about his theories, fourth dimension, time not being linear and all that. He's the Doctor, after all.

Later he found acting, and just like that, there's your life, go get it or you'll never know how to let go of this fucking town.

Finally.

A way to cope.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The flat was like a TARDIS to them, he thinks later, only the companions were out of something like an Irvine Welsh book.

So it goes like this.

John was young. Too young to know any better, or that's what he keeps telling himself. In a serious need of money to pay his rent - and that's what he said in public. Stupid git.

It was a  _bar keeping_ job, they said. Not some "occasional" cage dancing gig in fucking cycling shorts. But hey, just for the hell of it.

Of course it was far more than that, of course it was.

  
  


_Blackpool, 1989_

A  man walks into a bar.

It starts out like a joke, but somehow John doesn't feel like laughing.

It was pretty easy to sign up for that, feeling confident because there w ere no qualifications, come here tomorrow, do your job and we'll pay you in cash.

So he's there, all sweaty hands and nervous smiles. The music is shit, of course, and he goes outside to smoke. There's a bloke and his girlfriend, they like his Lou Reed t-shirt and a long story short, suddenly he's  _interesting_ , hanging out with the drunken couple and some regulars, getting high in the same balcony for god knows how many days.

Nobody was in a hurry, as long as they got the work done, and certainly none of them wanted to leave.

He hadn't known those other blokes had nowhere else to go.

The flat was like a TARDIS to them, he thinks later, only the companions were out of something like  an Irvine Welsh book.

The bloke's name is Jim, and reminds John of Iggy Pop, back in the day.

He gets invited to a flat full of trash and smelling like piss. He doesn't mind. The cats, two of them, seem restless. Jim asks if he's nervous, offering him cheap wine - there's a lot of it.

Jim asks what's his favorite opiate, like it's something he should know. John laughs, feeling stupidly excited because why not,  f irst time for everything. He washes the pills down with some wine, Jim turns the music as loud as it gets, screaming  _Louie, Louie_ at the top of his lungs, trashing the place even more. John's still laughing, wishing he could be more like Jim.

They go out to the balcony, there's weed and they talk about music, playing  _Strange Days_ on an endless loop.

It's morning, the sun is shining on his face and John feels something like kinship with these wonderful people.

He was always out of cigarettes though.  He had  a job, he could afford it, besides he was  _new_ . He wanted to stay, wanted to be appreciated.

The first night was utter horror to John.

_"I'll sleep with the little bloke here."_

And there he was, very uncomfortably between the biggest person in the flat and a hundred of heavy boxes full of garbage while the other junkie was banging on the wall and screaming for something, for someone, to stop.

In a way, it had been the best summer of his life. Safe and warm, because those people got his back. So fucking good, so fucking out of it, besides he wanted to know what it's like.

_"Liz? Ever seen John so happy?"_

And it was all downhill from there.

Jim died - down in the park like in the song that would define John's life, years later.

He didn't go to the funeral, thinking that the cause of death was something like a sign to keep himself alive. Thanks to his superstition, and paranoia, he'd been clean ever since.

Mostly.

Nothing like shooting up for twenty years.

  
  


After Jim OD'd, John and Liz still kept each other company.

Living together. It was good for a while.

Anyway.

She had to go, of course she had to.

So there he was, in an empty flat that felt as dead as too many of his friends. He'd always have all of the lights on, windows closed and the curtains always set in the same place so all the light would be artificial.

The apartment was too hot, but that's the way he liked it. He would suffocate in this terrarium, having a psychotic break.

  
  


_Now, I'm looking for the Dum Dum Boys_   
_The walls close in and I need some noise_


End file.
